In the thin post office I mail a postcard
about when we will be coming home.
Maybe never, is what I want to say.
I am staying abroad to find my fortune
or a native lover to have children with,
to make a contract with my brother-in-law
for exporting figs or twine, or a used car lot.
We could sway to the music. An inch
from obscenity, my brother-in-law could frown
then say, It’s all in good fun. He would pay
for the sliced ham and chard and run us up the coast
in his taxi. He would find me Charming.
I write I need money to come home.
I may have to stay and work on the shanty part
of the island, drifting from ill-suited employment,
then to manage a singing group. I say the weather
is Peaceful. That the moon hardly comes out
due to clouds. The light from our teacups lights
the night. Home is the only place left
singing like a buried little shell.